Man rescued from Bath canal after jumping in to save his dog

A man was pulled from an old canal in Bath after jumping in to save his dog.

Andrew Sewell entered the Weston Cut after his 15-year-old Tibetan terrier fell into the water.

"I dropped everything and ran after him"

The 47-year-old had been walking home with his dog Diesel from a friend’s house in Twerton at around 1am on Wednesday morning (10 November) when the pooch entered the canal.

Andrew said: "I'd missed the bus and had a few beers so I was walking home to Weston and I got to what used to be the Dolphin on Locksbrook Road.

"You go left up the hill and as we got halfway up the road Diesel somehow slipped out of his harness.

"I looked down at him and he looked up at me, and then he just started running down the hill. So I dropped everything and ran after him.

"I got to the pub and I couldn’t see him anywhere but I could hear whimpering and water splashing.

"He was right down in the water and he was trying to swim but his paws were standing on brambles."

"I didn’t know how long I was going to be stuck"

Andrew then jumped "straight into the water" but forgot to take his phone out of his pocket and said he "didn’t have any time to think".

He said: "It was like standing in quicksand - every time I moved my feet I sank a bit lower. I was just holding Diesel up out of the water as best as I could and hanging on to these brambles to stop myself from sinking.

"Then I just started screaming ‘help’ and I have no idea how long for. I could have been there for five minutes or an hour.

"Next thing I knew, the ambulance had turned up and they were lowering a ladder down to me. One of them grabbed Diesel and I was able to climb out. The ambulance crew were amazing and they had me out in no time.

"I'm lucky that someone called them as well. That's the scary thing - at 1am there was no one about so I didn't know how long I was going to be stuck. Afterwards, Diesel was just running around like nothing had happened and there isn’t a mark on him," Andrew said.

"It was just something I had to do"

He added that, ironically, Diesel hates water - so if he had known there was a canal close by, he wouldn't have gone anywhere near it.

He said: "He's such a scatty little dog, he's a real personality.

"We’ve had him since he was three and he is like a child to me. He was at my mum’s bedside with me when she passed away so he is very special.

"There was never any question about whether I was going to jump in or not, it was only a question of when. People have told me that I was ‘brave’ to jump in myself, but I don’t feel brave.

"It was just something I had to do."